I Find It In You
by echtranerai
Summary: For the USS Caryl Contest. Feelings unexpectedly admitting, a moment between Caryl and Daryl in the night.


"I think I saw him head out to the watch tower," Glenn answered Carol, his hands tenderly rubbing at Maggie's shoulders. They'd been out on a run, just recently returned to the din of the prison common area.

Carol and Beth had just passed out the last of the edible horse grains among their new guests. The Woodbury crowd groaned at the sight of the hot mash and Carol felt her neck stiffen in annoyance. It wasn't as if many of them had offered to help her and Beth in their small kitchen.

She'd happened upon the rest of the original farm group huddled around their empty plates. All of them sleepy-deprived and pallid.

"He had his pack – must be looking to take watch for the night," the young Korean offered, "and his journal thing. Anyone else noticed him carrying that thing around like a damn bible lately?"

"Glenn!" Hershel tutted, shaking his head, "Please don't utter 'damn' and 'bible' in the same sentence."

Glenn easily brushed off Hershels chiding, giving a sheepish nod to Carl, "What'd ya suppose he writes in there anyway? _"I shot a walker today – I know all the ladies think I look like a big badass with my crossbow and cigarettes."_"

Carl burst into laughter, imitating the hunter, "_I love eatin' squirrel and drinkin' Jim Beam. I hate when that damn Chinaman touches my bike! Deer are fuckin' majestic!"_

Glenn snorted out a full-bellied laugh as Beth swatted at Carls arm, "Watch your mouth," she whined at him in a friendly way. Carl blushed.

Carol sighed, keeping back a chuckle of her own. "I'm bringing him dinner outside, if anyone needs me," and then she was out, the cold night breeze tossing the the thin panels of her sweater open.

Winter was fast approaching – and she knew there would be a frost settled on the ground by morning. She felt it intuitively, a skill that had rapidly developed since the world had ended.

If she was honest with herself, it was a skill Daryl had taught her. Many a time at the farm, she'd wake before the others, gathering supplies to start breakfast. She'd always see him out in Hershel's fields, among the sway of the grass staring intently at the sky. He always rose before anyone else and when he was done working his peculiar brand of magic, he would come casually to Carol's side, take a full plate from her and give her the a concise report: "Gonna rain later – I'm going hunting 'fore it sets in."

As she approached the watch tower she could see his dark form looming over the side of the partially destroyed lookout, his thumbnail rolling in his mouth. His hair was getting long, the tips blowing into his eyes. Carol smiled, he reminded her of post-apocalyptic Heathcliff drifting aimlessly out among the moors. Except the moors were a prison yard filled with walkers. Except she didn't want Daryl to unhinge like Heathcliff, to let his wounded nature turn him back into something ugly.

He'd lost his brother and hadn't so much as mentioned Merle's name. Sure, she'd squeezed his hand. Sure, the Govorner and their new cellmates had provided constant distraction. But they hadn't had a service. She assumed Merle hadn't been buried. The constant influx of demanding hungry mouths on Daryl's conscious was probably weighing heavier than any string of squirrels he'd ever carried. And if wasn't all of that, it was desperate Rick constantly seeking his counsel. As if Daryl still retained any more sanity than the rest of them.

She trudged up the stairs slowly, unsure of how to approach him.

Rapping on the door with her knuckles, she pushed it open to find him already turned and waiting for her. He had a arrow in his hands, his fingers playing restlessly with the fletching.

"You need to eat," she chided him and immediately felt bossy. Cringing inwardly, she held out to the bowl to him with what she hoped came across as confidence.

He accepted it after nodding.

"I thought Sasha and Tyreese were on watch tonight?"

"I needed ta breathe," Daryl explained, shoveling feed into his mouth.

"It's too many people right?" Carol laughed and relaxed next to him against the walk, mimicking his stance. "Edgar, the old man with the blue cane, took the cell next to mine. Loudest snorer I've ever heard in my life! Worse even than -" And she caught herself before Ed's name left her mouth.

But Daryl knew what she meant. Always did.

He sighed, dropping the empty bowl onto his supply pack near his boots, "Merle sounded like a damn dyin' pig. Forget huntin' wit' 'im. Scared all the damn game away at night." When he looked up, Carol was smiling one of her shy smiles, her blue jean eyes glittering in the soft glow of the gas lamp.

She reached blindly for his hand in the darkness, her slender fingers grasping clumsily at his palm. He slid his calloused hand around hers, gripping to her tightly to him. As if she knew the way from all he the feelings he couldn't reconcile. As if she could show him a simpler place.

And when she stepped closer where he was slouched, her free hand coming to rest of his chest just above his heart, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"I ain't gonna talk about it," he muttered, not able to look her in the eyes, "I can't jus' yet. But if I need to... I know I – I'm comin' ta you."

It was all he could offer her, all he could offer himself. That if the day came that he couldn't stand on his own anymore, he would always choose her. Hell, he already had.

Carol's hand bunched briefly in the fabric of his button down, smiling softly as his eyes rose to meets hers then. Despite the constant stress tearing him apart at the seams, the pages of his conscious fluttering in disorder, she always so easily bound him back together. The desperate need to gather her thin frame in his arms overwhelmed him and he would've if she hadn't already let go of his flannel, stepping away.

"I'll let you be," she muttered quietly. And though Daryl knew he had hid up here to seek solitude, he was suddenly desperate to keep her in his space.

Bending to pick up his bowl, Carol accidentally knocked over his pack, silently cursing herself as his belongings scattered across the concrete floor. Daryl jerked forward to help her pick up the collection.

She picked up the overturned shoe box first, the contents rustling inside. A small rubber duck, a child's toothbrush, a pair of infant's slippers. As Daryl bent next to her to gather a pack of cigarettes,some hotel-sized bottles of whiskey and his writing journal that had tumbled out, she squeezed the rubber duck right next to his ear.

He jumped and she giggled, gesturing to the box. "I didn't take you for the luxurious bath taking type? Do you have bubbles in there too?" She smirked at him, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively and the corners of his mouth hitched up unbidden.

"Jude's gon' need things – I jus'... I pick stuff up when I see it." His tone was defensive but not serious and Carol's chest grew warm at his big heartedness. He was so good. He was the best man she'd ever known.

He took the box gently from her, stuffing it in his pack along with the Parliaments and clinking bottles of Jameson.

Carol fingered a scrap of fabric, the only thing left on the floor.

"Ow!" She cursed, dropping it to the ground as she sharply pricked her finger.

Daryl's features burnt red as he immediately grabbed the hurt finger, inspecting it.

As the subdued yellow lamp light reflected off the purple scarf, she saw the sewing needle and pins sticking from it. There was a small blue patch of fabric along the lining of the scarf – a patch along the seam where the garment had been torn. She ran her hand along the almost unnoticeable pattern, suddenly aware.

"This is mine, from the tombs," her thumb brushed Daryl's as they both stared mutely at the bundle.

"Was fixin' it," he explained shyly, "when I found ya... At first it just it was all that was left, but then you were in tha' closet and I thought you might want it back..."

"You were mending it," tears pricked hotly at the corners of her eyes and she could feel the uncertain weight of Daryl's eyes on her face, "You were fixing it for me. How do you do that?"

"Wha'?" He asked, so wrapped up in the way her two hands stretched out to find his jaw, the pad of her thumb tracing his cheekbone, that he forgot to jerk away.

"How do you fix everything? Me, this scarf, Rick's damn sanity, Judith and her needs. You piece us all together." He voice sounded hollow and he could small the salt of her tears before they began to fall. "How do you find the strength?"

Daryl's stomach turned violently, his eyes closing. If this were any other person, at any other time, he'd be on his feet and out the door. He'd rather bolt into a herd of walkers than be talked soft to.

But this was Carol. And she had her hands on his face. And she smelled like honeysuckle. And she told him he fixed her, when all he had ever been known to cause was ruin.

And maybe he'd felt this coming for a long time. Maybe like the slow approach of a buck or the absent hum of birds before coming winter, Daryl had sensed Carol's humble invasion. She was like the first rain of spring – fresh and penetrating, soaking the plains of his soul until everything was fertile and alive and blooming.

Daryl wondered if this the light airiness that filled his body at her touch was love.

When he found the courage to look at her face, Carol was crying but also smiling at him with a kind of hope he'd never seen before; a kind of hope that was unique to her alone at the end of the world. He jerked her violently into his lap, his hand weaving through her hair and tucking her head into the crook of his neck.

Her tears made hot tracks down his clavicle, the moans of walkers blowing past them on the wind. A cautioning lullaby, a reminder. That things are too easily lost in this world. That the right time was simply the time they had left.

"You," he mumbled into her gray curls, resolved and finally ready, "I find it in you."


End file.
